Businesses and affordable-housing advocates debate best use of land.
by Sarah Tully
The Orange County Register - Sunday, October 22, 2006
ANAHEIM - Two mobile home parks sit at the center of a debate between Disney-area businesses and affordable-housing advocates over the best use of land in the Anaheim Resort.
The months-long controversy over a proposed 1,500-home development with 200 affordable units exemplifies a longstanding conflict in Orange County, where $7.8 billion annually comes from visitors but where inexpensive homes for tourism workers are lacking.
Walt Disney Co. and resort officials say new homes clash with the city's long-term plan to allow only new tourism-related businesses, such as hotels, on the plot across the street from Disney property that might someday become a third theme park. The development could be almost as dense as some projects in the downtown-like Platinum Triangle, which is under construction nearby.
But four of five City Council members and housing supporters say they prefer a new residential project to replace about 260 mobile homes in an area that relies heavily on low-income employees.
Next month, the city Planning Commission is due to take sides when members consider a zoning change to permit developments with at least 15 percent affordable units.
Resort plan
Disney and resort-area businesses believed the debate was resolved 12 years ago, when the city approved a plan outlining the Anaheim Resort's zoning.
Because the area around Disneyland had developed in a haphazard manner, the resort community wanted to take control of the future as Disney made plans to add Disney's California Adventure and Downtown Disney.
"The Anaheim Resort area - was very seedy-looking," said Bill O'Connell, who has owned resort hotels for four decades. "There were big ugly neon signs and telephone poles and wires and no landscaping to speak of."
The city floated $510 million in bonds to be paid with hotel bed taxes, but Disney agreed to pay the debt if city funds fell short. In 1998, Disney bought a 78-acre plot for expansion. Bed taxes and hotel occupancy have since soared.
Under city zoning, mobile homes and a strip mall are allowed to stay on the plot, but any new development must be resort-related. In August, the council decided also to permit hotels that incorporate luxury condos.
As part of that Aug. 22 discussion, developer Suncalconsultant Frank Elfend asked the City Council to rezone the property for regular housing projects with affordable units, paving the way for his development.
Even though Suncal has yet to submit a formal proposal, council members gave their blessing to the project. Only Mayor Curt Pringle objected.
Disney officials said they were shocked the council would alter the city's "economic juggernaut," said Ed Chuchla, Disney's vice president of corporate real estate. Disney officials met with council members that day and later. They also spread the word to other business officials, who spoke at the next meeting. The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce agreed to form a task force to review general housing issues.
"There are limited acres to do good things. We want to put it to the highest and best use," Chuchla said. "Residential just didn't fit that bill."
Housing
Councilman Richard Chavez said conditions have changed since 1994, as hotels and eateries have contributed to the need for housing. Suncal is one of the few developers to agree to build affordable housing.
The city already has a strategic plan to add at least 1,328 affordable-housing units by 2009. Just 60 homes are under construction.
"We think that definitely that's the right place. That's where the jobs are being created," said Cesar Covarrubias, senior project manager of the Kennedy Commission, which advocates for affordable housing.
Pringle thinks the resort is the wrong place. Soon, the city plans to change zoning in other areas, such as industrial parks, for affordable housing.
Already, more than 8,000 units - none of them affordable - are planned across the freeway in the Platinum Triangle. The dense Suncal project might take away condo sales and act as a drain on city services such as sewers, Pringle said. The first Platinum Triangle condos are priced between $320,900 and $633,000.
Suncal has yet to set a price for proposed homes. Affordable townhomes completed last year in downtown Anaheim cost $300,000 - half the price of the other brownstones in the same development.
What's best?
Elfend said a 2005 city-commissioned report gives conflicting information about the best use of the land.
A June draft, which was stamped as final, stated that the plot is suitable for residential uses and that hotels would be needed in 15 years or more.
But the July final report deleted the possibility of residential uses and stated that hotels would be needed sooner.
Councilman Harry Sidhu called for an investigation into the matter. The planning director's response stated that the commissioned report was changed after the city provided new information verbally.
"My main concern is that we have not given proper fairness to everybody," Sidhu said, adding that he is unsatisfied with the response.
Mobile home park
Meanwhile, mobile home park residents are waiting to find out their fate.
Three years ago, residents John and Nancy Hummel were forced out of another park where they owned a home, and they don't want to move again. Brenda Fox, 66, bought her mobile home in 1985 because it was an affordable place to live with her two adult daughters.
"I understand the world is always changing. I don't think anybody ever likes to be told they have to move," Fox said. "I really don't know where I would go."